Standard practice for designing ballasts for fluorescent lamps is to design a different ballast for lamps of different wattages. It would be desirable, however, to design a single ballast that self-accommodates to appropriately supply power to each one of a family of different fluorescent lamps, one at a time. This would simplify manufacturing and distribution of such ballasts, as well as to enable end users to select different wattage lamps for use with the same ballast.